Sinking the Chi

The man in the video tells me to gaze far into the sky while I sink my chi. I am boxed in between bed and TV, trying to extend my arms gracefully during evening tai chi. "Easy for him to do," I exhale, "he is gazing on a beach in Maui where the sky is perfectly blue and distance is what you want to make of it."



But it is absolutely necessary that I sink my chi; it has been polluted and must give way to new energy. Ten after five; I just came home from shopping. A driver had given me the finger after he had sped past me on a 25 mph stretch. A few blocks later a young man walked purposefully, slowly, across the street, looking at me, daring me to do what? Ignore him? Pay attention to him? And in the Safeway parking lot a woman parked in the space that I had my eyes on. She came from the opposite direction and made a sharp left turn in front of me. My chi is very uptight. My chi is stuck. I have to sink my chi.

This morning I had pulled the tai chi video cassette from the bottom drawer of the book case. I've had it for years, but only occasionally play it. In my bedroom is an old TV that still accepts this outdated format. My urge to practice tai chi comes shortly after the retreat in the Oakland Hills; apparently my cleansed and well fed soul has run dry already.

I'll have to improvise, imagine a far away gazing point. I imagine that my chi has to be sunk into a forest - into a soft and fertile ground. My gaze will seek new energy in the deep green of a never-ending forest. That's when I turn and look at the landscape above my bed. Perfect. Well, maybe I should have a mirror to be able to follow the instructions of the tai master on TV.



While I add my own periodic "turning from tree scape above the bed to Maui sky on TV" movements to the program, I realize that I am not in the moment. My mind wanders. It tries to put together a group of green yarn balls. The mind's eye is a funny thing; like "the gut feeling" it has its own agenda. Mine follows, blissfully, a string of interrelated thoughts on shades of green, knitting, Bears, children, fir trees, birches, oaks, a baobab. Oh! Haven't thought of that magic baobab for a while.

Did I just sink my chi? With the baobab? Suddenly I am excited. That's what I need - Arrivederci gelato in the piazza! Bear 267, Hanna, and Bear 268, Iphigenie, you are it, the tail end of the ice cream escapade in lovely Roma. I need to go green for a while.

Heads Up!

I spent six days at a workshop and retreat in the Oakland Hills. The place is Holy Names University's Sophia Center and the topic was "Nature and Soul". It was a special kind of opportunity to stretch my mind, to spend time with my daughter, and to reevaluate "Me in this World." Some absolutely fabulous speakers/facilitators such as David Abram, Thomas Moore, Paula D'arcy, Jim Conlon, Stephen Dunne, Barbara Holmes, Brian Swimme made my head spin and stirred my enthusiasm.




I think the long term lesson I took home is: we have wandered off too far into the field of fact and observation and have lost some of our intuitive and poetic thinking which allows us to be part of nature. In order to save our planet we must feed our souls so we can embark on putting our knowledge to good use. Another aspect: less capitalism and more spirituality. I am not religious, but I do believe in the divine in all of us, and I was eager to inhale good vibrations and thoughtful exchange of ideas. Later, after I was home again, somebody asked if I had been brainwashed. "No," I would like to answer, "only sprinkled with stardust."








In the mornings and in the evenings I knitted. I knitted six Bear heads.
It is easier to read when I knit only heads. I spent early mornings just below the chapel with a cup of coffee from a machine (cafeteria didn't open until 8) and I played with my iPad drawing apps before lectures.




I had sent out all finished Bears before I went on the retreat and after I came home I became obsessed with putting bodies on the heads. More "Gelato in the Piazza" with the addition of a multicolored yarn that sped up the process.




Bear 260 - Arabella, Bear 261 - Bastienne, Bear 262 - Carmen, Bear 263 - Daphne, Bear 264 - Elektra have been shipped.




Bears 265 - Froh, and Bear 266 - Gutrun are finished.

Hanna is awaiting her face.



Three more heads expect bodies and names.

P.S. Thinking of My Hero, Nelson Mandela.

Bear Rules

What I think about when I knit Bears

Like everything else in my life, Bears have rules. As they emerge from their acrylic gene pool they demand from me a certain amount of repetitive tasks, a good deal of imagination, and as much positive karma and happy energy as I can muster.

On this 16th day of my Mandela Day pledge to knit 67 minutes a day for 67 days, I sit in front of an almost finished Bear from the "Gelato" group.

Yes, Rule Number 1: Bears need a theme before they can be imagined into life. "Gelato" is my theme for the summer. I imagine a bunch of young girls giggling, licking their lips, talking fast, eating gelato while their parents tour museums and churches in Europe. There might even be a couple of boys joining later on.










Two of the group are already finished, Bear 260 (Arabella) and Bear 261 (Bastienne). Rule Number 2: think of names while knitting. What goes with Italian thoughts, with Piazza Navona in Rome, gondolas in Venice, la Scala in Milan? Music! And lately I have been thinking about the alphabet. Ever since I heard a German comic ask the question: "Who decided the order of letters in the alphabet?" I have been preoccupied with this question. I think that nobody really knows, but everybody speculates on the reasons (shape of letter?) and explanations, such as the following, only to confuse me.

Www.straightdope.com
The roots of ABC order are found in the cuneiform script of Ugaritic, the Semitic language of an ancient city in Syria. The letter shapes of this script aren't obviously related to our alphabet's direct ancestors, but the alphabetic order from a 14th-century BC inscription is virtually identical to later Hebrew and Phoenician letter lists, and the letter names are related.

While the ABC swirls around in my mind I decide that these Bears will be named in alphabetical order of their appearance. I pick their names by skipping through a little book "The A to Z of Opera." I have done the ABC before so I must be careful not to repeat.

Arabella - name of and character in a lyrical comedy by Richard Strauss
Bastienne - character in a musical play by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Who will Bear 262 be? Carmen? Caterina? Now I wish she were a boy - I would definitely call him Candide. Don't laugh. Decisions have to be made. Old minds must be stimulated! :)

I have no particular rules for knitting, except to follow the basic Motherbear pattern. Sometimes I knit a bunch of heads first, especially when I travel. This way I avoid carrying five balls of yarn and still not having the color I NEED. Besides, the head does not require much thought. Twenty stitches. Fifty rows. I can keep up a conversation on a train, knit in a movie theatre, knit while walking, or watch a TV show without paying attention to my fingers. I wrote about this earlier in one of my blogs and added a picture of a bunch of heads. Later I pick up the stitches once for the front and once for the back. Color combinations just happen, as long as I keep a few balls of yarn on the table

I use a definite order for sewing and finishing. After the whole long main piece of Bear is finished I weave in the ends on the upper part of the body, except for the long ends on each side of the bottom of the head. They are used for sewing together the head, then they are woven along the top of the head - about five stitches in. Later they are used to sew the ears.
With the head sewn, I knit the arms. Then I sew the rest except for leaving an opening for stuffing on the inside of the legs

Rule Number 3: stuff the head with the kind of polyester stuffing that allows the big, blunt needle to penetrate easily. I hate it when the tip of the needle pushes out a blob of stuffing.

After I shape head and arms I weave a double strand of yarn through the neck, starting at the middle of the back side. I pull the ends very tight, then guide them toward the inside and tie, knotting three or four times. I think that a nice neck helps with the looks.

Which brings me to Rule Number 4: never close the Bear up before the neck has been tied. Don't want to have ugly neck string knots on the outside.

Rule Number 5: hold Bear by his stuffed head and pinch ear area flat. Sew across with yarn from side seam. Sew down, then up again and weave in at the back. Ears are important.



My Rule Number 6 is simple. I have to do the face the way I wrote it up a couple of years ago. It works. When I change it I screw up. I start at the back of the neck and end there, tie and weave in the ends. The knot is barely visible and will be covered by the scarf.

Well, Carmen (she wants to be called Carmen) reminds me about Rule Number 7: (she has found out that I get excited over embellishments) purses go on the right side. The left side is for the Motherbear sewers and the lovely hearts that get added in Minneapolis.



Rule Number 8: pictures please. Nobody leaves this house without having posed endlessly.

Rule Number 9: talk to the Bear. She needs stories to tell the child who will adopt her.

"What?"
"I look pale. Too much pink grapefruit in my outfit."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Make a flower with raspberry sherbet. I want a bright flower on my ear."



Rule Number 10: listen!

"Thank you Carmen. I think you are ready to fly."

Location:Campbell

Gelato in the Piazza

It looks like the heat is here to stay. What better way to celebrate summer than to knit "summery" bears. My theme for the next couple of months will be
"Gelato in the Piazza." I played with several flavors and think that (white) lemon ice, (green) key lime pie, (orange) sherbet, (pink) grapefruit, (yellow) peach and (hot pink) raspberry are the main ingredients in my summer bowl. Here is a preview:

Vincent, here we come.

A long time in the making, and finally finished today. The four bears that make up the theme "Heaven above Arles" - Aurore, Midi, Soir, and Minuit - represent images of the sky as I interpret early morning with its pink stripes, midday with white clouds, evening with the ripe sunflower, and midnight's starry night.

Ready to post in the NOW and about Mandela Day Project

There are two more bears who were actually finished, just needed a few stitches here and there. They have not been sent out yet. I knitted Bear 254 in honor of all the ladies who knitted and crocheted pink bears when I was sick with breast cancer. I counted more than 50 pink bears on Ravelry during that awful time when I felt sick from chemo and radiation. Thanks again to all of you who stepped in and  supported me with knitting, emailing, posting, calling.

 I'll just call her Pinky. She was created during tiny spurts of energy and yesterday I sewed the pinned-on flower securely to her ear.

And there is Bear 255, the Red Christmas Bear, almost finished (I sewed the headband on today)  around Christmas 2012. I named her after my first Great-Grandchild - Talia.

And with this I should be up to date with my bears. 

I have a picture, taken two days ago, of bears in progress. And I will post this progress regularly, I hope, since I committed myself to knitting 67 minutes a day for 67 days as part of the Mandela Day Project. 

Four bears spent a lot of time in a big bag with the yarn that is supposed to make them into "Heaven Above Arles" a van Gogh tribute. The two dangling from the top of the photo have no theme (my imagination took a leave of absence after I recuperated) but I am working on a title right now.

Updating

I posted the last teddy bear photo on May 9, 2011. On May 23, 2011 I had surgery. Since then the blog has not been updated. Before I went into the hospital I sent the last finished bears to the Mother Bear project. I had only posted to Bear 248 but had actually finished the series "Primary Challenge." From my Ravelry pages I see that they were Bears 249 to 253. Neither one of these received a poem, but eventually I will get around to that. For today I will only post their pictures.

Bear 249 - Oriana - an Unimportant Woman from Venice, Italy



Bear 250 - Eveline - an Unimportant Woman from San Francisco, USA



Bear 251 - Angelique - an Unimportant Woman from Paris




Bear 252 - Hope - an Unimportant Woman from Haltwhistle, England



Bear 253 - the Mystery Woman from Soweto, South Africa. Since she is the final element in the puzzle, an exclamation mark - I named her ILANA - where the i comes closest to an exclamation mark, just turn it upside down.



This series of teddy bears was my birthday tribute to Nelson Mandela in 2011

Putting them next to each other in a certain order, the first letters of their names spell

PEACE ON EARTH!